


nowhere else

by remy (iamremy)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Loves Sam Winchester, Gen, Hallucinations, Sam Winchester Has Mental Health Issues, Sam Winchester Loves Dean Winchester, also a WHOLE LOT, like a whole lot, past Sam/Amelia - mentioned, sam's terrible horrible no good very bad year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24875632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/remy
Summary: Amelia was just a hallucination. Dean figures it out.Written for the Sam Winchester Prompt-a-Thon.
Relationships: Amelia Richardson/Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 36
Kudos: 166
Collections: Sam Winchester Prompt-a-thon





	nowhere else

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SamWinchester_Prompt_a_thon](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SamWinchester_Prompt_a_thon) collection. 



> **Prompt:** Amelia was just a hallucination. Dean figures it out.
> 
> -
> 
> i've had this theory for YEARS AND YEARS and always had a vague plan to write it, and then this prompt came along, and i FINALLY did it!!! bless you, whoever prompted this :')
> 
> i wanna give special thanks to nat (honeycube02 on tumblr) for helping me iron out the plot for this, and to teddy (transgendersam on tumblr) for motivating me to finish this and for writing with me! this fic honestly would not have happened without the two of you, i love you guys!
> 
> -
> 
> set at some vague point in the later seasons. title is from the quote "reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else" by george orwell from _1984_.

Sam’s half-asleep, head leaning against the cool glass of the window, when his phone rings. For a moment he thinks it’s just the music, but then Dean asks, “You gonna pick that up?” and Sam reaches for his pocket.

“When did you change the ringtone?” he asks before picking up, cutting off _Iron Man_ mid-chord.

Dean shrugs, turning back to the road.

“Hey, uh, Sam, this is Rob. You guys busy?”

“Just finished a hunt,” Sam tells him, stifling a yawn. “Headed home. Everything all right?”

“I need help,” Rob says.

“Hunt?”

“Uh-huh. Vamp nest in Goldsmith, down here in Texas. I got here thinking there’ll be a couple, but there are maybe a dozen. I can’t take them all on my own.”

“Uh, hang on.” Sam covers the phone with his palm. “It’s Rob. Needs help with a vamp nest somewhere in Texas.”

“Where?” Dean asks.

Sam shrugs. “Some town named Goldsmith.”

“Goldsmith? Never heard of it,” says Dean. Then, “Tell him we’ll be there by morning.”

Sam takes his hand off the phone and relays the information.

“Thank you so much,” Rob says, and he sounds genuine, too. “Really, I owe you guys one.”

“It’s all right,” Sam answers warmly.

“I’ll see you guys in the morning?”

“Yeah, sure.” The call ends.

“Rob, huh?” Dean is quiet for a second. “He’s not too bad.”

“Yeah, he’s all right,” Sam answers, putting his phone back in his pocket. “Hey, how are we gonna be there by morning? You’d have to drive non-stop.”

“I’m good for it,” Dean tells him. “We checked out late today, anyway, I’m not sleepy.”

“You sure?” Sam asks, concerned. Just because Dean _can_ drive all night doesn’t mean he _should_. 

“Yeah yeah, don’t worry about it,” dismisses Dean. “Get some sleep, man, you barely slept last night.”

“Okay,” Sam says after a moment, grateful. Last night _had_ been difficult. Not nightmares, exactly - just general restlessness. It’s a miracle that Dean hadn’t kicked him out for tossing and turning and keeping them both up. “You’ll wake me up if you’re tired?”

“Sure,” says Dean, in the sort of tone that means _it’s not happening_. Not just because Dean enjoys driving, but because he won’t disturb Sam’s rest unless he absolutely has to.

“Thanks,” Sam murmurs after a few moments, head resting against the window again. 

Dean glances at him, half-smile on his face. “‘S fine, Sam. Get some rest, we got a bunch of vamps to kill.” And with that, he turns back to face the road, and at the same time switches the music to something softer.

Sam smiles to himself as the car gets quieter. He glances one last time at Dean, surreptitious, and then closes his eyes, letting himself go to the rumbling of the car under him, and the soft rock Dean’s just put on. His brother’s never been great with his words, but that’s fine - this, now, is louder and firmer than anything he might’ve said instead.

Sam sleeps through the night, much to Dean’s approval. He calls Rob once he’s crossed over into Texas, gets the coordinates from him, and then wakes Sam once they’re in town - which is more of a village than anything else. A quick Google search while waiting for coffee in the town’s only diner reveals a population of barely three hundred.

Sam yawns, settling in the seat across from Dean’s. He still looks half-asleep, blinking blearily, and Dean grins. His brother is not going to be functional until he’s caffeinated.

“Slept well?”

Sam mumbles something inaudible, and then raises his head to glare at Dean. “How are you this awake?”

“I had a Red Bull,” Dean tells him.

“One?”

“Three,” Dean admits a second later.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “I can’t decide what’s going to happen first - you dying of liver disease, or your heart exploding.”

“Eh, you’ll bring me back,” Dean dismisses.

Sam raises his other eyebrow. “Just so I can watch you do it all over again?”

“Relax, Sammy, I’m fine,” Dean tells him, grinning at the bitchface he receives in reply.

The coffee arrives; Dean waves the server off, but Sam is practically inhaling the stuff. “You don’t want any?” he asks Dean, three sips later.

Dean shakes his head. “Don’t think my heart can take it, man.”

Sam doesn’t say the words, but the _I told you so, asshole_ is clear on his face anyway. Dean is saved from a lecture by Rob’s arrival, heralded by the little bell over the diner door.

“Hi,” he greets, joining Sam and Dean. “Can’t thank you guys enough for this, seriously.”

“It’s fine, dude,” Dean says. “How you been?”

Rob shrugs. “Eh, fine. You guys?” He’s not much older than Sam, but he’s already got silver at his temples and a sallowness to his face that Dean knows can only come from too much drink and not enough rest. 

“We’re all right,” Dean says, choosing not to comment. “Coffee?”

“ _Please_ ,” says Rob fervently.

By now Sam’s caffeinated enough to form sentences longer than half a dozen words, and the conversation soon turns to the hunt. It’s nothing they haven’t dealt with before, and Dean’s hoping it’s going to be a simple in-and-out. It helps that Rob’s done all the research, meaning all they have to do now is go in, swing machetes around, and come back out in hopefully one piece.

Then Rob says, “I think the nest split up, actually - about half of them here, and the other half left town. Might have to go after ‘em.”

“Do you know where they went?”

Rob nods. “Kermit. It’s not far, actually, about half an hour’s drive. I think they’ve got another nest there.”

Sam stiffens. It’s inconspicuous enough that Rob doesn’t notice, but Dean’s eyes narrow when he glances at the expression on Sam’s face. Or rather, the lack of it - Sam’s face only blanks out like this when he’s trying his best to appear unaffected.

“That’s all right,” he says finally, and to his credit his tone doesn’t change.

“Should we split up?” wonders Rob.

“No,” says Dean. “There’s too many of them. I say we clear this place out first, then head to Kermit.” He’s hoping they can work fast enough that they won’t have to head there, that Rob can take care of it on his own, but he knows odds for that aren’t good.

“Sounds good,” says Rob.

Sam remains quiet.

Dean’s usually great at lying to himself when he needs to, but this is the one sore spot he can’t delude himself out of. It’s been more than five years since the year he was in Purgatory, and he’s no longer insecure that Sam’s going to leave him for a girl and a house in the ‘burbs. He hasn’t worried about that in a very long time.

It’s just… still a sore spot anyway. Just because Sam is not going to do it now doesn’t mean he never had. That Dean had spent a year fighting for his life, fighting to get back to Sam, and Sam had just… not looked. Given up on him.

They don’t talk about that year. Benny is in the past, and so is Amelia. Sam had apologized, a couple years after the fact, and that had been the end of it. Dean had forgiven him long before the apology, anyway, and he’d reassured him once more and that had been that.

Until now, it hadn’t come up again. They hadn’t even needed to go near Kermit for any reason at all.

It’s just a blip on the radar, Dean decides in the end. He’s got nothing to worry about regarding Amelia, nothing at all. It was so long ago, and so much has happened since then, and Dean would bet his life on the fact that Sam would rather die than be apart from him. It’s come to that, several times.

They’re just going to go in, kill some vamps, and leave again just as quick. Preferably by tonight. Dean will drown an entire crate of Red Bull if he has to, if it means getting them out of here as fast as possible.

The hunt itself goes smoothly. They clear out the nest in Goldsmith; not that it could be called one. Freshly turned vampires, no control over their appetites, and barely any over their new bodies. Sam, Dean, and Rob made quick work of them in less than an hour.

Rob rides with them to Kermit, for which Sam is grateful even though he knows Dean doesn’t feel the same way. For once, he has no desire to talk about this, while it’s clear that Dean is itching to check in with him and make sure he’s okay. In fact, Sam doesn’t even think there is anything to talk about. Kermit’s an old story. One he wishes had never happened.

He hasn’t even thought about her, not in literal years. In the grand scheme of things, it hadn’t ended up mattering that much. Their relationship started in pain, and ended in it too - considerably more so for her than him. He’d wondered a few times, if she’d ever gone back to the bar, just to find that he wasn’t there. That he’d chosen his brother over her.

He hopes she’d chosen Don, too.

She had been important to him, once. He still wants nothing but the best for her, for her to be happy. That’s all it is. That’s all it could ever be. She’d kept him alive, but only because he had nothing else. Once Dean was back in the picture, Sam could never have gone back, no matter how bad things had gotten with Dean.

And they’d been _bad_. Enough that Sam prefers to push that entire year out of his mind.

He knows Dean isn’t worried about him leaving. He knows that Dean no longer holds that year against him, that they’ve moved past it. They both know that their life began with each other, and that’s where it’ll end, too. There’s no space between them for anyone else, and they’re more than fine with that now. Nobody else could ever really fit, anyway, and they’re done experimenting with it and hurting other people in the process.

It’ll be fine, decides Sam. They’ll go in, clear out the nest, and leave. And then Sam can go back to pretending that year never happened.

Rob says his goodbyes soon after they clear out the second nest. Sam wants to leave too, but he’s covered in blood and gore, and no way is Dean letting him into the car like that. Not that Sam would tolerate a second more of being gross and sticky anyhow.

They get a motel room. Sam looks pissed about it, but they don’t really have a choice. He heads into the bathroom as soon as Dean opens the door, and a second later Dean can hear the shower going.

“I’ll go get food!” he yells. It’s almost dinner time, and they’d skipped lunch. Dean’s stomach is rumbling, the way it always is after a good hunt. He could really do with a burger and fries right now.

“Get me a Caesar!” Sam calls back.

“Friggin’ rabbit food,” mutters Dean as he heads out, locking the door behind himself. The sooner they’re done cleaning up and eating, the quicker they can get the hell out of Dodge. The entire place is beginning to make Dean’s skin crawl for no reason that he can pinpoint.

Sam’s been withdrawn the entire day. More than once Dean caught him staring at a diner or a laundromat or something else in town, and he can’t help but wonder, uneasily, if Sam misses his life here. He’d settled, Dean knows. Gotten a job, maybe made friends. He’s settled in Lebanon, too, in his life with Dean, and he seems content enough, but…

Content is not the same as happy.

Had he been happy with Amelia?

Dean shakes his head as he turns into the parking lot of a diner, dismissing the idea. He thinks of late nights with Sam, watching movies; of long drives and stargazing; of farmer’s markets and going grocery shopping together. He thinks of the way Sam smiles when Dean gets him his favorite latte, or takes him out to the drive-in cinema. He thinks of how Sam is what makes the bunker home.

There are a lot of things in their shared past that are bad, and ugly, and painful. They got through them, and they let go. Together. This was one of them. Dean is not going to sit here and drag it all back now, not when there’s no need for it. They can’t change that it happened, but it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. It’s over. It’s going to stay over.

Of course, that’s before the woman in front of him in line turns to go sit and wait for her food, and Dean gets an eyeful of pale skin and thick, curly dark hair. 

Fuck, he thinks, heart sinking.

Because of course it was never going to be that simple.

He orders their food on autopilot. “Fifteen minutes,” the girl at the counter tells him, so Dean walks to the nearest empty table and sits down to wait. He keeps glancing at her out of the corner of his eyes, noticing the way she’s scrolling listlessly through her phone as she waits.

She’s alone here; her husband is nowhere to be seen.

Dean should ignore her. He knows that. Pretend he never saw her. Get his food, go back, and get on the road the moment Sam puts the last forkful of salad in his mouth.

But she’s right _here_ , and he can’t stop thinking about that year Sam had spent with her, and the ocean of difference that exists between happiness and contentment. He knows there’s been enough damage between him and Sam when it comes to her - God, he can barely think her name - and yet…

She’s right here.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Dean gets to his feet and slides into the chair across from her at her table. She looks up from her phone at that, and one eyebrow goes straight up her forehead. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“Amelia, right?” starts Dean. 

She narrows her eyes. “Do I know you?”

“You’ve probably heard of me,” Dean answers. “Um. From my brother.”

She still looks confused.

“Sam?” tries Dean. “Doesn’t ring a bell?”

She shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t. Dude, who are you, seriously?”

“Come on, Sam!” Dean says, emphasizing his brother’s name. “The guy you were with while your husband was MIA?”

“How do you know about Don?” she asks immediately, eyes narrowing further. She doesn’t address the first part of Dean’s sentence at all.

“Sam told me,” Dean answers. “How else would I know?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, paling a little, “and you are seriously creeping me out now.”

“Just give me a second-” begins Dean.

“I’ve got mace and a taser in my purse,” she warns him, interrupting.

“Listen to me,” says Dean.

“I’ll yell for security if you don’t get up _right now_ , you fucking weirdo-”

“You’re a vet,” Dean says quickly, hoping he can shock her into listening to him, “and a few years ago you lost your husband. You thought he was dead. And then a guy came into your clinic with a dog that he’d hit and you ended up with him, and you kept the dog-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” she cuts in, eyes wide. “Who told you all that? How could you possibly know _any_ of that?”

“I’m telling you,” Dean says patiently, “Sam told me. I’m his brother, Dean. He must have mentioned me.”

Her expression doesn’t shift to recognition like he’d been hoping it would. “And I’m telling you, I don’t know who you’re talking about!”

Dean can see her hand creep to her purse, presumably where she keeps the mace and taser. Not in the mood to be on the receiving end of either, he quickly says, “Wait, I’ve got a picture-”

He keeps one hand in the air as he slowly withdraws his phone from his pocket. Her eyes stay on him, tracking his movements, as he unlocks his phone and scrolls through his gallery till he finds a picture of Sam that’s not meant for blackmail material.

“Look, that’s him,” he says, holding out his phone. For the life of him he can’t imagine how she’d have forgotten him, though. Sam’s memorable enough even if she hadn’t dated him.

Sure enough, there’s that recognition. “Oh, _Sam_! The guy that hit Riot!”

Dean frowns. “I mean. If that’s how you remember him-”

“How else am I supposed to remember him?” she cuts in, handing Dean his phone back. “He hit Riot, handed him over to me, and then left. I never spoke to him after that.”

“Wait, what?” Dean leans forward, not sure he’s heard right.

She leans back, maintaining the distance between them. “What?” she repeats.

“What do you mean you never spoke after that?” Dean questions. 

“Exactly what I said,” Amelia answers. “He stayed in town for a while, and then left. We didn’t talk at all.”

“You were in a relationship with him until your husband came back,” Dean says slowly. “You guys had a house, and the dog-”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t know what the hell he’s told you, but that _never_ happened.” She grimaces. “What a weirdo.”

Dean narrows his eyes, irritated at her talking about his brother in that tone. “He’s not a weirdo,” he says at once.

“He met me once and then made up an entire relationship,” Amelia says with an eye-roll. “Is that not weird? It’s creepy as hell, dude, I don’t even _know_ him. And for him to know all that stuff about me, he must’ve been stalking me.” Then she narrows her eyes too. “ _Is_ he stalking me? Is he with you, nearby?”

“No,” Dean lies automatically. It feels like his head is spinning. She doesn’t look like she’s lying, but then that can’t be possible. Sam had hit the dog, and found her, and they’d settled together-

“What did you do, then? That entire year?” he asks. “Until your husband came back?”

“Got through the days,” she answers. “Went to the clinic, kept myself busy as much as I could - God, why am I telling you this? I don’t even know you!”

“And you never spoke to Sam?” Dean asks, one last time.

That seems to be the last straw for her. She gets to her feet, grabbing her purse. “No, like I said,” she tells him. “I’m gonna go now. If you come after me I’ll mace you, I’m not kidding,” she adds.

Dean lets her go, looking without seeing as she grabs her food from the counter and heads towards the door. She spares him one last glance before exiting, and then shakes her head, grimacing. Then she’s gone, leaving Dean alone with his spinning head.

He functions practically on autopilot again as he grabs their food and gets back into the Impala. He parks in front of their motel room, and finds Sam asleep when he walks in. He must’ve been more exhausted than he’d looked; he’s lying on top of the covers in his t-shirt and pajamas, looking practically dead to the world.

Dean sets the bags of food down on the small motel table, and wonders if he should wake Sam. He knows his brother doesn’t want to stay here a moment longer than necessary, and Dean doesn’t blame him.

But Sam is clearly tired, and Dean’s mind is whirling, and he needs answers. He doesn’t think he can let this go, this weird half-mystery he’s stumbled into just because he wanted some dinner.

Before doing anything else, though, Dean grabs a corner of Sam’s blanket and tugs. Sam stirs, muttering something in his sleep, and then stills again, entirely unbothered with Dean dragging the covers out from under him. Dean frees the blanket and then covers Sam with it, making sure he’s comfortable, and then goes to sit at the small table.

He Googles the town on his phone as he eats. It’s like every other small town they’ve ever been to. One school, one general clinic, one vet clinic. One motel. If it’s true that Sam had spent a year here, then Dean thinks it’s pretty reasonable to assume that someone, somewhere, must remember him.

He finishes his meal, and glances over at Sam. Still fast asleep in the same position. He looks like he’s out for the night. Probably going to be pissy as hell when he wakes and realizes they’d spent the night here, but Dean’s going to cross that bridge when he comes to it.

He gets to his feet, puts his jacket on, and scribbles a quick note on motel stationery in case Sam wakes before he returns. _Out for a few, be back soon_. Short and vague.

When they’d arrived, he’d been the one to check them in. Sam had stayed in the car. Dean approaches the clerk at the reception, and puts on his most winning smile. The middle-aged guy looks completely unimpressed. “Can I help you?” he asks Dean.

Dean puts a twenty on the counter. “Yeah, I sure hope so. How long have you been working here?”

The man eyes the twenty for only a few seconds before sliding it towards himself and pocketing it. “Since I was old enough to,” he tells Dean. “It’s a family business.”

“Cool, cool.” Dean holds out his phone, same picture of Sam from earlier. “Seen this guy before?”

The clerk glances at the screen, and then his eyes flick back up to Dean with practiced disinterest. “Maybe.”

Dean suppresses a sigh, fishes out another twenty from his pocket, and puts it down on the counter. The man takes it at once, and then says, “Few years ago. He stayed here a while. Paid in cash.”

“How long is a while?” Dean asks, leaning forward.

“‘Bout nine, ten months,” the clerk answers. “He was kind of weird, honestly, but he kept to himself and seemed harmless enough.”

“Define weird,” Dean says.

The clerk gives him a meaningful look over the top of his glasses.

“Fuck’s sake,” mutters Dean. Another twenty. This better be fucking worth it.

“Talked to himself a lot,” the guy tells Dean. “I don’t think he knew that, though. He looked like he really thought someone was there with him. Mostly a dude named, uh - Dan? No, Dean.”

Dean’s heart jolts. “What did he say?”

A shrug. “Never paid too much attention. You get the loony type, every now and then. Sometimes he’d make like he was walking a dog, but he’d just be holding an empty leash. Real good with machines, though,” he adds. “We let him stay at a discount because he’d fix up aircon units, freezers, anything else that needed it. And then one day he just up and left.”

Dean swallows, trying to process the onslaught of information. “Just like that?” he asks, throat dry.

The clerk nods. “Yeah. Bitch and a half it was, trying to find someone else to fix the damn A/Cs. I won’t lie though, it was somewhat of a relief. He used to keep us up at night, sometimes.”

A last twenty. “Why?”

Another shrug. “Dunno what it was exactly, but we’d hear screaming from his room. It was different from when he was talking. Sometimes it sounded like crying or something, I don’t know. Made my skin crawl, I won’t lie.”

“Right,” says Dean in the end, when there’s nothing more. He hears his own voice like it’s from a mile away. “Uh, thanks. For your help.”

“Sure,” says the clerk.

Dean turns, walking back to the motel room in a daze. He barely registers unlocking the door and going in, or undressing and getting into bed. Sam is breathing slow and even, lying on his side facing Dean’s bed, and Dean watches his face in the lamplight, trying to make sense of the entire evening.

Amelia had had no idea who he was. Somehow, Dean doesn’t think she was lying. She looked genuinely bewildered, and then annoyed that someone would be lying about being with her. And then everything that the clerk told Dean… none of it sounds good.

The dots are all there, and all Dean has to do is connect them. He lies on his side, keeping his eyes on his little brother, and he tries his best not to think about what all of this means. It’s inevitable, though, and it’s too big for him to ignore it.

Sam, it seems, suffered some kind of mental break soon after Dean’s disappearance. He hallucinated an entire relationship with a woman he’d met once and a dog that wasn’t ever his. And all that time, he was here, in this same motel that they’re in now, talking to thin air and crying himself hoarse at night.

Dean feels bile rise in his throat at the thought. Does Sam know? Is he aware of any of this? Dean doesn’t think he is; the way that Sam had been when Dean had returned from Purgatory… Dean doesn’t think he’d been lying about Amelia. The way he’d looked earlier on in the day when they’d had to come to Kermit… it had been real.

Sam genuinely, truly believes that he had been in a relationship with her for the better part of a year.

Dean doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night. He doesn’t even try. It’s impossible anyway; every time he so much as blinks, he’s forced to see Sam in his mind’s eye, desolate and alone, talking to him and holding an empty leash. There had been no one to look after him, Dean realizes with a jolt. He’d been entirely alone. No Bobby, no Cas. No Dean.

No stone number one.

Everything suddenly makes sense in the worst possible way.

Sam, barely free of his hallucinations. Centuries of trauma fresh in his mind. He lost Bobby, and then he lost his brother and his only friend in one go. Dean doesn’t even want to think about what it must’ve been like for his brother. At least when he’d lost Sam to the Cage, he’d had Lisa and Ben, and they’d been _real_. 

Sam makes a small movement in his sleep. Dean watches him, wondering if he’s going to wake, but then he settles again, curling further into the blanket. He seems relaxed enough, and for that Dean is grateful. The least he deserves right now is a full night’s sleep without any nightmares.

Dean doesn’t take his eyes off him for the rest of the night.

Dean won’t stop staring at him.

Sam knows he probably thinks he’s being sneaky, stealing glances and looks when he thinks Sam’s not looking. But Sam’s not an idiot, and Dean is not the most subtle, and it’s beginning to creep him out a little.

“Dude, _what_?” he asks, when he comes out of the bathroom to notice Dean watching him.

Dean shakes his head, and says, not sounding convincing at all, “Nothing.”

Sam rolls his eyes, but lets it go. “Whatever. You ready?”

“Yeah, let me just go to the bathroom real quick.”

They should’ve left last night, thinks Sam as he makes sure their bags are packed and they aren’t forgetting anything. They were _supposed_ to. Dinner, and then the road again. But Sam fell asleep while waiting for Dean, and he’s irritated at himself because of it. He’d been hoping to be home by now, where he can hide away somewhere and sort himself out. 

He doesn’t like being here any more than Dean does. His brother hasn’t said a word, but Sam knows he’s remembering that year too. Impossible for him _not_ to, when it had been the reason for so much anger and pain and insecurity between them. Sam just hopes that Dean isn’t worrying that Sam will leave him, that the idea of a civilian life still holds some appeal for him. It doesn’t, not at all. Hasn’t since Jessica. It’s a little harsh, but Sam knows he wouldn’t have been with Amelia for a second if he’d had any other choice.

He’d cared about her, and he’d done it sincerely. But if he’s being honest with himself, a huge part of the reason is because he’d had no one else. For the first time in his entire life, he’d been entirely alone. 

Sam doesn’t think he’ll ever admit it out loud to his brother, but he’s pretty sure that if it hadn’t been for her, he would probably have ended up dead.

Dean exits the bathroom. Sam’s already waiting, both bags slung over his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he says.

Dean nods. “Yeah.” He tosses Sam the car keys, which Sam catches with his free hand. “Go start the car, okay? I’ll go check out.”

Sam puts the bags in the trunk and settles in the front seat. From here he can’t see Dean in the front office, so instead he decides to check out breakfast places in the next town over. He knows the places here by heart, but no way in hell is he going to suggest getting food from someplace and having to think about how Amelia had liked their milkshakes, or whatever. There are way too many memories here, and Sam wants to avoid them as much as he can.

Dean comes back five minutes later, sliding into the driver’s seat. Sam waits for him to pull out of the parking lot and get on the road, before saying, “The diner over in Andrews has good breakfast options, according to Google.”

“Andrews? How far away is that?” asks Dean, thankfully not questioning why Sam doesn’t want to get breakfast here.

“About fifty minutes,” Sam tells him. “They’ve got waffle fries, though,” he adds.

It works. “Waffle fries? Ah, you know I’d drive a whole day for good fries if I had to.”

Yeah, he knows. He feels a little bad, making them wait for breakfast, but he really, _really_ wants to get out of this town. And never come back, ever, if possible.

Amelia may have kept him alive, but it was still the worst year of Sam’s life. And even though Dean and him hadn’t been on the best of terms, he still doesn’t regret choosing Dean over her. He doesn’t think he ever will. A Dean that fought with him all the time was still better than no Dean at all. And now that they have a home, and a life of their own, and an understanding that they hadn’t had before… Sam wouldn’t give up any of this, not for the entire world.

Nobody else can ever come close to being what Dean is to him. No one else is going to know him inside and out the way Dean does. No one else is going to let him win at rock-paper-scissors on movie night, or look up salad recipes to make for him, or take him out on drives the way Dean does. No one else is going to understand the way his mind works, and nobody else could ever care for him the way Dean does.

And he can’t ever love anyone the way he loves his brother. The soul-deep, all-encompassing feeling he gets when it’s just him and Dean, when they’re happy… he can’t feel that way for anyone else. He’d tried with Jessica, and that had ended painfully. With Amelia he hadn’t bothered. He’d loved her, but he hadn’t _loved_ her the way he does Dean.

He’d take any kind of life, no matter how awful, if it meant he could be with Dean.

He just hopes Dean knows that.

The waffle fries are not the best he’d had, but they’re worth it because with each mile between them and Kermit, Sam relaxes visibly. He’s still a bit on the quieter side, even for him, but he cracks small smiles at even the crappiest of jokes, and by lunchtime he’s actively bitching about Dean’s music.

“Hey,” Dean says suddenly, cutting Sam off mid-bitch. “You’re okay, right?”

Sam stops short. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “You?”

“Yeah,” says Dean shortly, turning back to the road.

He doesn’t know why he feels so raw all of a sudden. He’d been fine, up till now - or mostly fine, as it were, but he’d been making do. But hearing Sam talk to him keeps bringing back the clerk’s words, and that mental image of Sam alone, talking to thin air and addressing it as Dean. Holding an empty leash, walking a dog that’s not there, and going back to the motel room at night just to cry himself to sleep. He wonders, uneasily, how many days had passed before Sam’s brain decided to rewrite everything.

It was a survival strategy, he’s damn sure of it. Ironically enough, Sam’s twisted way of protecting his sanity, maybe. There’s got to be a line, right? thinks Dean. Some limit to how much Sam could take in such a short amount of time, before he snapped. Dean remembers, all too well, the times when _he’d_ reached the end of his rope in the year Sam spent in the Cage, despite Lisa and Ben’s presence. He remembers locking himself in the Impala for hours on end, desperately trying to find Sam’s scent, or a book he left behind, some evidence that he’d existed, that he’d been on this planet with Dean, by his side for all those years.

Maybe, thinks Dean wretchedly, if he’d ever been given the option, he might have also ended up erasing that year from his own mind. Because while he’d had Lisa and Ben, he’d also spent every single second hyperconscious of the fact that Sam wasn’t actually _dead_. Sam was somewhere so far out of Dean’s grasp he could barely fathom it, and every second Dean spent upside, maintaining some apple-pie farce, Sam was going through years of agony.

( _How come you never looked?_ he’d once asked Sam, the year after he’d come back, raw and betrayed and drunk and always so damn angry.

 _I thought you were dead!_ Sam had answered, almost pleading for Dean to believe him. _I thought you were in Heaven, and I wasn’t gonna take that away from you just ‘cause I was alone_ -

 _You weren’t alone, though, were you?_ Dean had snapped, and Sam had fallen silent.

The next morning he got Dean breakfast, and stayed by his side as he got through his hangover, and remained quiet as Dean pretended he didn’t remember the previous night at all.)

It was true that Sam hadn’t been alone, at least in his own mind.

It was also true that Sam had still been lonely, because lonely was not the same as alone, just as happy wasn’t the same as content.

And it was true that when it came down to it, Sam chose Dean.

Dean glances at him now, out of the corner of his eye. Sam is reading something on his tab, lip between his teeth, gaze laser-focused on the text. He’s holding one of his gross green smoothies in his free hand, almost entirely forgotten.

They’ve come a long way. 

“Should be home by dinner,” Dean says, breaking the silence.

Sam looks up. “Yeah. Is there anything in the fridge?”

“I’ve got leftover lasagna in the freezer,” Dean reports. “And we could pick up pie on the way home.”

“Sounds good,” says Sam. He remembers his smoothie, takes a sip. “You gotta take me to the farmer’s market on Saturday, though, we’re almost out of greens.”

Dean makes a face, just on principle; they both know Dean will take Sam, like he always does, and that they’ll get ice cream on the way home, like they always do.

Some more time passes. Dean keeps looking at Sam, grateful that while Sam is aware of it, he doesn’t call Dean out. He wonders if he should tell Sam that he’d made up an entire year. Every time he’s tried to keep something big from Sam, it has backfired, and this is _major_.

If it was him, though, he thinks he wouldn’t want to know. It’s so long ago, and if it gives Sam some semblance of peace, then maybe it’s better he doesn’t know.

But Sam’s also had his control over his own life taken away too damn many times. He has a right to know, to not have secrets about his own body and mind kept from him.

“Hey,” says Sam softly.

Dean turns to look at him. “Yeah?”

“You - you know I’m happy, right?” Sam asks, a little hesitantly. “With, um, our lives. And with you. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do,” Dean says at once. He’s been waiting for Sam to bring this up since they left Kermit. “I know, Sammy.”

“I mean, whatever happened before… it’s all in the past,” Sam goes on. “I’m honestly, genuinely good with our life, now.”

“I know,” Dean repeats, and smiles reassuringly at his brother.

Sam smiles back, and then ducks his head so he can pretend he’s going back to reading. “Just - just wanted to say it,” he mutters.

Dean reaches out and squeezes the back of his neck once before returning his hand to the steering wheel. “Okay,” he says.

And that’s the end of the conversation.

He’ll tell Sam if Sam asks, Dean decides suddenly. _Only_ if Sam asks. Because right now, his brother is smiling at his tab, and he looks at peace, and Dean can’t hurt him with the truth. Dean can’t throw him back to when he’d been questioning his own sanity, when he’d needed to be assured every moment that Lucifer couldn’t hurt him, when he’d needed Dean to tell him what was real and what wasn’t. They’ve come so far since then, and Dean can’t see him broken down like that again, pale and gaunt and pressing his thumb into his palm just to feel something he knew was real.

It’s a heavy secret to carry, but Dean’s willing to shoulder it to his dying breath, to his grave, if it means Sam stays happy. They’ve come a long way past the guilt and anger and secrets they’d shared then, and the last thing Dean wants is to bring it all up anew and destroy Sam’s perception of reality in the same moment. His brother deserves to feel good, to be happy with his life. Dean’s not going to be the one to take that away from him, not when there’s no need for it, and when it isn’t hurting Sam any more.

Maybe it’s not right, and Dean’s being a coward. Maybe he’s falling back into old habits, keeping secrets from Sam and reasoning it’s for Sam’s own good. Maybe Sam will find out eventually, and he’ll hate Dean for not telling him.

But he’s _happy_ right now. 

Gadreel was different, Dean reasons. That had been an active violation of Sam’s autonomy, done mostly so that Dean wouldn’t be alone, more than to save Sam. It had hurt Sam, and it had caused everyone around them so much pain and heartbreak. It had killed Kevin.

This secret would hurt no one except Sam. Compared to the secret of angel possession, it’s practically harmless. 

But they got through that. If there are any repercussions to telling Sam about Amelia - and Dean is sure there will be - they can get through those, too.

But only if Sam asks, only if he brings up Amelia himself, unprompted.

Dean hopes he never does.

**Author's Note:**

> so what did you guys think? please comment and let me know!
> 
> love,  
> remy x


End file.
